Hot-Wall Furnace Heating

Modeling of Semiconductor Process Equipment

Introduction

• Furnace reactors are used in the semiconductor industry for layer growth and annealing

• The susceptor is heated by a RF coil to high temperatures

• A uniform distribution of the temperature at the wafer region is crucial for controlled and reproducible process steps

• This model investigates the temperature in a hot-wall furnace reactor used for silicon carbide growth

Model Definition – Geometry

• Symmetry can be used to cut the 3D geometry in half twice

• The graphite susceptor is surrounded by a graphite felt insulation, a quartz tube, and the RF coil

Model Definition

• This is a multiphysics model, solving an electromagnetic part and one thermal part

• The electromagnetic part solves for the magnetic vector potential, A, at a fixed frequency

• The thermal part solves for temperature, T, and radiation

• The radiation fully controls the thermal flux between the susceptor and the quartz tube

Results

• The temperature on the quartz tube has a maximum of about 900 K, which may be a bit too high

Results

• The heating cycle takes about one hour, and with a power of about 10 kW the temperature at the center of the wafer reaches almost 2300 K

Results

• A surface plot of the wafer reveals the nonuniformity in temperature at the end of the heating cycle, which is almost 150 K